Unintended Readership
by journalxxx
Summary: Wilson learns it's generally unwise to force a magician to reveal his tricks.


"Oh no, please, don't inconvenience yourself on my account." Wilson dropped a heavy bunch of twigs near the fire, then sat down and started cleaning the smelly bucket of fish he had just caught. "I don't need any help, really."

Maxwell didn't even acknowledge him. He was sitting in his favorite corner, lodged between two conveniently arranged chests and a heap of grass, eyes glued to that mysterious book of his, smoking his obnoxious surrogate cigar, as usual. Nevertheless, Wilson continued.

"It's not like preparing and storing food appropriately is our main concern every single day. It's not like you may use learning a few recipes now and then, seeing as your diet before stumbling onto my camp consisted solely on roasted carrots and berries."

"Mh?" Maxwell finally raised his gaze from the Codex, feigning surprise. "Oh excuse me, were you saying something? I must have missed it among that pointless whining of yours."

"I was saying," Wilson chopped off the head of the fish more energically than needed, flashing an equally fake smile to the fellow survivor, "I can't recall the last time I've actually seen you doing something productive around here."

"Hey pal, I'm taking care of my share of the chores." Maxwell pointed behind himself, towards the pair of shadow puppets gathering logs and stones not too far. "I don't know what you're complaining about, really. You're leaving all the grunt work to me."

"Your puppets are useful, I'll give you that. You, on the other hand, spend your whole day napping and doing nothing. Your back's gonna leave an indent on the side of that chest."

"A clear sign of poor craftmanship, if you ask me."

Wilson gritted his teeth as he put the fishsticks in the crockpot and washed his hands.

"Would it really kill you to give me a hand with a couple of prototypes for once?"

"Probably, yeah. Remember what happened to the old camp? Burnt to a crisp by your beloved Science Machine? I'm not standing anywhere near that thing, thank you."

"That was an accident. I'm already working on something to prevent similar circumstances, and some help would definitely speed up the process, you know?"

"Pass."

Wilson rubbed the bridge of his nose, repressing the deep desire to choke the life out of Maxwell. His uncaring attitude towards the basic needs and tasks required for their daily survival was absolutely maddening. More than once Wilson had entertained the idea to kick him out of his camp for good and just watch how he'd fare for himself. He had never done it, though. He truly wanted to believe he was a better man than Maxwell, however undeserved his patience may be.

"Of course, you have much more important things to do, like sleeping and smoking. What does a cigar made of shadows even taste like?"

Right on cue, Maxwell took a long drag from it. "It tastes much better than half of the stuff you cook, I'll tell you that."

"And why are you always staring at that book? You've had it for ages, you must have read it a thousand times already! Do you think I haven't noticed you haven't turned a single page in the last hour?"

"Wow, we're awfully observant today, aren't we?" Maxwell smirked, unnecessarily tipping the cigar to shake off some non-existent ash. "Maybe you'd achieve better culinary results if you focussed more on your food instead of on my hobbies."

Either by sheer chance or black magic, Wilson caught a whiff of real smoke. He cursed and hurried to the crockpot, barely managing to salvage the meal before it charred beyond repair. By the time he was done, Maxwell was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

"All right, how about this?" Wilson suggested cheerfully one day, as he was busy replacing a few broken tools with a new set of gold ones. "You lend me that fancy book of yours for one afternoon and I'll turn a blind eye to your utter lack of commitment to our survival."

Maxwell rolled his eyes and let out an aggravated grunt. "For heaven's sake, are you still going on about this?"

"I don't get what the problem is. We share supplies, I let you tinker with my prototypes and check my blueprints, in case you have any helpful additions to suggest - not that you ever do. The only thing we don't share is that book. Why can't I have a look at it?"

"You wouldn't be able to make anything of it. Magic isn't as easy as snapping your fingers and pulling bunnies out of tophats, trust me."

"I don't doubt it." Naturally, Wilson wasn't expecting to be as skillful at dark magic as the former Shadow King, but who knew what he could come up with, given a little practice. Having even a single puppet of his own would make his daily chores considerably less taxing. "But how can you know for sure if you don't let me try?"

"Forget it. I told you you can't use it."

"But why?"

"Can you split your own mind into pieces?"

Wilson blinked. "You mean literally or metaphorically?"

"How quaint of you to think there's a difference." Maxwell scoffed and returned to ignore him. Wilson's interest, however, had been piqued.

"Well, even if the magic itself is beyond my grasp, I may find some other valuable information. Maybe a way to modify the portals for-"

"There's nothing of the sort in here, believe me. Do you really think They would have let me keep it if it granted me any chance of escape?"

"Maybe we're just not seeing the full picture. Your magic can't help, and my science can't help, but combining the two may bring forth new possibilities. We may be able to strike some synergy between-"

"No, listen here." Maxwell sat up from his grass heap, staring at Wilson very seriously. "We all have our own strengths, right? Yours are your science and your unreasonable hair growth. Mine are my magic and my devastating good looks. Those are our personal perks, and what we excel at. I know everything there is to know about shadow magic and let me assure you, if there was any way we could escape, I would have already found it. I've destroyed and rebuilt this world from the ground up enough times to know exactly how it works. Is that clear?"

Wilson didn't reply immediately. It made sense, of course, although... he'd have to take Maxwell's word for it. And even though they were both in the same boat now, and both equally interested in finding a way out of the Constant, he couldn't find it in himself to trust Maxwell that easily. He was still suffering the consequences for the first time he had been that naive.

"Well all right, even if I can't gain any knowledge or power from the Codex, that still doesn't explain why you don't want me to read it. It's just a book, how could me reading it possibly cause damage?"

"Sure, it's just a harmless book, and mine was just a harmless voice in a radio. And yet, look where it brought you." Wilson frowned, and Maxwell smirked maliciously. "Really, Higgsbury. You get mad at me if I give you information that you end up misusing; you get mad at me if I withhold information that you'd end up misusing. There's no pleasing you."

They glared at each other for a few moments, before Maxwell stood up, pocketed the tome and headed to his tent.

"I'm not going to repeat this again, pal. The Codex is not for you. Stop worrying about it and stop pestering me about it. I won't deflect your curiosity so kindly the next time."

* * *

So, here was the thing. Up until that point, Wilson hadn't really held much interest towards the Codex Umbra. Maxwell was very welcome to keep his demonic shenanigans to himself, as long as he didn't use them to endanger them both. Since that last conversation, though, he had been exceptionally secretive and standoffish. He spent much less time reading when he was around Wilson, and when he did, somehow he always managed to hold the book so that Wilson couldn't peek at the pages even as he was passing by. Neither of them had brought up the topic again, but Wilson could clearly see a glint of hostility in Maxwell's eyes when the scientist's glance happened to fall on the book. That was a tad beyond their usual brand of pettiness, and wholly suspicious. On the worst nights, when Wilson's sanity hung by a thread of laced flowers and jumping at shadows became essential to his survival, he found himself in desperate need to examine the damn book himself, if anything to dispel his far too legitimate doubts on Maxwell's truthfulness.

On one such night, he resolved to put his fears to rest once for all. Maxwell had the habit of keeping the Codex on his person at all times, even while sleeping, meaning that the only moment that Wilson could exploit to put his hands on it would be while Maxwell was bathing in the pond nearby. Fetching it himself would be hardly inconspicuous and overly foolish, so Wilson had taken to train Chester to fetch small objects around the camp as quickly and sneakily as possible. With the help of lots of jerky treats and positive reinforcement, the little fellow had become a veritable silent raider. Roughly five minutes after Maxwell had disappeared behind the tall reeds, Wilson set Chester off towards the pile of folded clothes, warning it to attempt to get the book only while Maxwell wasn't watching.

He waited in his tent for so long that he thought Chester had given up or had been distracted by something else. He was already plotting a different approach to the issue, when his little companion poked its toothy head in the tent and trotted to him, unceremoniously spitting its loot right on his lap.

"You did it! Great job, Chester, good boy!" Considering the noticeable lack of vengeful screaming, Chester must have indeed been able to accomplish his mission without being spotted. Wilson rewarded it with an especially generous handful of jerky for its trouble, and the creature happily scampered away.

There it was, the infamous Codex Umbra. Wilson immediately scooped it up, aware that he couldn't hope to have more than five minutes to get a good look at the item.

The tome was lighter than it appeared, despite the sturdy leather binding and the thick parchment pages. The symbol on the front seemed to have been crudely carved directly on the cover with some sharp instrument, its irregular outline then smeared with vivid red ink. Seen up close, rather than an ancient text of esoteric knowledge, it looked more like the rough handiwork of a child, or a poorly crafted theatrical prop.

As soon as Wilson opened it, though, his doubts vanished. He didn't even need to read to be sure that this was the real deal. The paragraphs, the lines, the very letters of the text didn't look printed at all, but they seemed to float seamlessly over the page, vibrating and flickering gently in and out of focus like shadows themselves. Their types and sizes were constantly shifting, and the words themselves weren't static either, changing from one language to another without apparent reason: English, French, Latin, some German here and there. The pictures were a whole nother level of startling, depicting the most varied creatures lazily blinking, cheekily snarling, restlessly shuffling. As Wilson flipped through the pages, he noticed that the contents of the book seemed to be constantly rearranging, taking shape directly under his eyes as he focussed on a specific page, then erasing themselves spontaneously and filling the same space with the following paragraphs. He postulated that the book was somehow automatically responding to the reader's interests, offering the desired topic displayed in whatever language appeased its audience the most. The sheer amount of information such a volume could hold must be simply-

There was a sharp movement, a cold draft, and Wilson looked up to see Maxwell's shape standing out at the entrance of the tent. His silhouette was made even more stark and gaunt by the faint light coming from the firepit outside. Surprisingly, he didn't speak, nor move, despite catching his associate red-handed.

"Hey, look what Chester-"

"Put it down."

Wilson's gaze flicked down to the book, but he looked up again before any words could form. That low tone was ominous, much more worrying than one of Maxwell's usual foul-mouthed rants. Honestly, he wasn't really expecting a milder reaction, but still. Wilson felt he had tolerated this unwarranted reticence for far too long, and if this had to be the last straw in their barely functional cooperation, so be it. He forced himself to smile and speak with an ease he didn't feel.

"Come on, why are you so hellbent on keeping this away from me? I'm not going to ruin it, you kn-"

"I said. Put it down." Maxwell took a step further into the tent, the flap closing behind him and dimming the light from the fire even further. Wilson thought he could see shadows crawling down his sleeves, wrapping around his fingers and turning them into claws. "This is the last warning you get, Higgsbury."

Suddenly, Wilson felt cold. He felt the sharp cold of the winter bite at his extremities, the darkness lapping at the weak light of his torch, the howls of unfathomable horrors screaming at him from the distance as he was stricken by how similar Maxwell looked to his former supernatural self, to that ghostly apparition that had tried to discourage his travel to the throne room. The same ferocious wrath was etched on his features, the same feral aggression moved his limbs. That last warning had expired as soon as it was uttered, he realized, and he instictively looked at the book in a panic.

The tome dutifully responded, materializing a specific page in an instant. He saw the flickering silhouette of a puppet holding a pickaxe, which turned into a shovel, which turned into a sword, and he decided.

"NO!"

Maxwell roared as he lunged forward, but it was too late. Wilson didn't even need to read the explanation, the runes, the details and circumstances, he simply willed the shadow puppet into existence, and it existed.

And then the world split.

He yelled, only marginally because of the sharp claw slashing his forehead. More importantly, way more importantly, because of the unbearable pain exploding in his head, and the utter chaos his senses fell in. He opened his eyes, and saw himself. Two himselves. A bleeding, scruffy, dirty human one, and a shadow one, just the outline of a familiar body with familiar spiky hair, overlapping almost perfectly, both on their knees, staring in front of them, at each other. That was the only clear thing he could see. The background was impossible to distinguish: it was the tent, dark but also lit by the fire, the chest at the edge of his vision, two chests at the edges of his visions, shadows where there weren't supposed to be, objects and colors blending together with no rhyme or reason. He looked to the right, to where Maxwell was, he thought, and it was a mistake. The image of his selves went completely out of focus, Maxwell's legs appeared, but also they didn't, and he could only see the tent. He realized, dimly, among the pain and the confusion and the rising nausea, that he was seeing two perspectives at the same time, his own and the shadow's. He looked forward again, and the puppet mimicked him. They moved and sensed everything at the same time, which made him see double in the best case, a kaleidoscopic, unfathomable mess in the worst.

"What- Maxwell-"

A clawed arm swooped from the right, and from the left, and snatched the book from the ground. Wilson tried to look up at Maxwell again. His irate face swam in his vision, unclear and twisted, and it became even worse when something warm trickled in Wilson's eye. Blood, he guessed.

"I swear, you're way more trouble than you're worth."

Wilson groaned and closed his eyes, which made the whole situation only superficially better. He sat back on the ground, and his back hit something hard, and it also didn't, and he fell backwards. He had to open his eyes again. He was staring at the ceiling of the tent, but also at the entrance. He felt the ground against his back, and the solid edge of the chest supporting his weight. He was lying on the floor horizontally, and he was sitting up vertically. He twitched on the spot, his bodies trying to respond to two completely different senses of balance that made his head spin and his stomach lurch unspeakably.

"What the hell is this?"

"Your first and last taste of ubiquity. Enjoy the experience."

Wilson saw- heard- sensed- somehow perceived that Maxwell was walking off.

"Wait! How do I undo this? I can't-"

"Not my problem, you imbecile. It'll vanish in a couple of days anyway. Plenty of time for you to learn a valuable life lesson, which is to keep your filthy hands off my stuff."

"No, nonono wait." Oh Lord, not now. Not now, not now. As if the perspective of two days spent in that infernal hell of perception wasn't enough, he could feel the telltale signs of the other Shadows approaching. The soft whispers, the darkness gnawing at the edge of his vision, the colors vanishing from the world. Whatever that book did was messing with his sanity too, and very quickly. "They're coming, I feel Them! I can't even defend myself like this!"

He heard Maxwell groan. "You have the mental fortitude of a hysterical turkey, you know?"

"Look, I'm sorry about this, but please hurry!" Wilson flailed about, desperately trying to sit up both his bodies and only managing to gain an influx of confused tactile and visual perceptions. The beasts were starting to become visible, their wails echoing more loudly in his ears. "You can dispel shadows, I've seen you do that!"

"I can dispel my shadows. Not yours, and not Theirs."

"There must be another way! I don't- I can't-" He turned his head around randomly, until he casually found an angle that let him have a somewhat decent view of Maxwell. He was standing on the threshold of the tent, glaring at Wilson in clear contempt. Suddenly, anger disappeared from his features, replaced by a small smirk.

"Why, of course there is."

"How?"

"It's a tad stressful, but you look like you're past the point of caring about such details. I may be able to help if you wish so."

Wilson shouted as the deformed head of a Terrorbeak curiously peeked inside the tent, passing straight through Maxwell's body. The scientist scrambled backwards, shaking violently.

"Maxwell! NOW!"

"Well..." Maxwell finally approached him, smiling widely, but Wilson's heart skipped a beat when he caught the glint of his dark sword, its curved edge splitting and vanishing as it swam in his vision.

"Wait, what-"

"Since you're asking so nicely, pal."

Maxwell sank the sword in the puppet's throat. Wilson saw it, he heard the soft sound of cut flesh, he felt it. He felt it. He felt the cold, otherwordly blade slice through his skin, crush his pipe, clink against the vertebrae and dislodge them as it pierced through his body from side to side. He felt the warmth of his blood flowing down his chest. He felt the unbearable, excruciating pain. He couldn't scream, his lungs receiving no more air. He screamed, his chest and lungs and heart bursting with horror, until the world was one again, filled with darkness and silence.

* * *

When he woke up, Wilson felt remarkably better. He was sure of it, even though it took him several minutes to recall exactly what the term of comparison was. He felt like a beefalo had stepped on his head, and his stomach was cramping as if he hadn't eaten anything in a week, but at least he was seeing through a single pair of eyes and there were no shadows in sight, neither his nor anyone else's. He sat up slowly, earning himself a bout of dizziness and a burning pang to his forehead. He gingerly poked the gash up there, gauging that it had been treated with nothing more than a smear of salve and a flimsy strip of silk slapped on top of it, the bare minimum to avoid a nasty infection. All things considered, it was surprising that Maxwell had bothered to assist in the first place, or that his assistance hadn't manifested as a swift decapitation. He subconsciously scratched his throat, and the length of his stubble informed him that he must have been out of commission for at least a whole day.

He managed to get on his feet, swaying somewhat unsteadily, and walked out of the tent. Maxwell was half-sitting, half-lying in his usual spot, lazily leafing through his precious book. He spared Wilson a single, fleeting glance, not a muscle shifting on his features, then he resumed his reading wordlessly. Wilson wasn't in the mood for unnecessary spats, so he simply wobbled to the ice box and retrieved some meatballs. The sun had just risen, and there were still a few red embers in the pit. He put his meal in the crockpot and waited for it to warm up to an acceptable degree.

He winced in surprise when one of Maxwell's shadow puppets appeared beside him without a noise. It dropped a pile of logs near the ice box and immediately scurried away towards the nearest tree. Wilson followed it with his gaze and watched it merrily hack away at the unfortunate plant, losing himself in his own thoughts for a minute.

"How many can you handle at once?"

He had asked conversationally despite his better judgement, but Wilson would rather die (again) than relinquishing his curiosity. On his part, Maxwell raised his head slowly and graced him with his deadliest glare to date.

"They work differently for you, don't they?" Wilson pressed on. He remembered seeing three puppets once, for sure, but he didn't know if that was the full extent of Maxwell's skill. "There's no way you could juggle two or three of them if you weren't able to-"

"Higgsbury." The Codex shut with a loud snap. Maxwell's voice had that dangerous edge again, the one that Wilson's brain would now immediately associate with the cold edge of a sword impaled in his body. "One more word about any of this and I'll make you beg for Them to come and kill you."

Alright then, maybe he would wait a few days before breaching the topic again. Wilson started munching the defrosted meatballs as he observed another puppet deposit some flint and stone near the wood, his thoughts quietly whirling in his head like leaves in the breeze.


End file.
